The
Three Mariell Siblings Were Ghosts - They Perished in a House Fire
Five Years Before the Main Events of the Film; The Nanny Had Killed
Them After Their Mother Committed Suicide by Drowning - After Learning
About the Siblings' Incest; David Was Led to Safety (From the Ghosts
Who Wanted Him to Join Them in the Spirit World) By the Ghost of
His Dead Sister

This R-rated, poorly-received
haunted house mystery drama (similar to Henry James' The Turn of
the Screw) was directed by Lewis Gilbert from an adaptation of
James Herbert's novel of the same name. Its tagline was unconvincing: "You
will Believe..." The film's twist about a ghostly presence came
years before two other more prominent films with similar endings: The
Sixth Sense (1999) and The
Others (2001). Executive-produced by Francis Ford Coppola, it was
only released on DVD following star Kate Beckinsale's later prominence,
in films such as Pearl Harbor (2001).

The story was set in 1928 and revolved around the film's
main character - skeptical and cynical American paranormal psychologist
Camberly University professor David Ash (Aidan Quinn). He was still
guilt-ridden after the accidental drowning of his twin sister Juliet
(Victoria Shalet) years earlier in 1905 when he was an 11 year-old
child. After he pushed her too hard during innocent horseplay, she
was knocked unconscious when her head hit a rock, and she sank to
the bottom of the water. When her body was displayed in a coffin
in the family living room, David was summoned to the edge of her
casket, and she seemed to awaken.

Later, because of his fame as a popular book author
about psychic phenomenon, he was called upon to investigate
the supposed 'haunting' of the upper-class Webb's family country
estate (Edbrook Manor) by tormented spirits. The Sussex estate was
inhabited by elderly maid Nanny Tess Webb (Anna Massey), a mentally-troubled
frail old woman who had been the Nanny for the three Mariell siblings,
now adults and living there:

her older controlling brother, artistic and aristocratic
Robert (Anthony Andrews)

her wild, prankster younger brother Simon (Alex
Lowe)

In the midst of trying to debunk ideas of the supernatural
(he was against spiritualists and mediums), David began to believe that
the elderly woman was suffering from madness, wild imaginations and
senile hallucinations, when she declared: "There are spirits
in this house." When he first arrived, he met Christina at the
train station (emerging from plumes of steam) who stated that the
siblings had actually invited him - and then warned: "Nanny
is convinced that mother comes back here every night."

David
soon observed the pseudo-incestuous behavior between Christina and
both of her brothers. She often appeared nakedly indifferent (posing
nude for her brother's painting, skinny-dipping by diving off a dock,
etc.). [Note: Beckinsale had a body double.] Robert described Christina's
nude portrait that he was painting: "At
its best, it captures the soul of both painter and subject. Makes
them both immortal." A romance blossomed between David and Christina
and he was eventually able to bed down Christina himself.

During his stay, there were ghostly sightings of Christina's
dead mother, and David also had troubling visions of his own: flashbacks
to his sister's drowning and appearances of her,
a fire in the estate's hallway, and the sighting
of a mysterious spiraling column of dust leading him to the dock.

In the film's twist ending, it was discovered that
the house was frozen in time. The three Mariell siblings were all ghosts,
actually bored reprobates, who were tormenting the maid (their childhood
nanny). As
confirmation, David was led by the ghostly vision of sister Juliet
to the graveyard where he viewed the tombstones of the three Mariells,
who died in 1923 in a house fire (set by Nanny). The Nanny had set
the fire that had killed them in one of the locked bedrooms, after
their distressed mother had committed suicide (by drowning), upon
learning of the siblings' incest.

After killing the Nanny (the ghosts didn't need her
anymore), the three attempted to have David kill himself and join
them (Christina urged: "Die
for me, David"),
by tricking him into jumping from a window to his death after they
set the mansion ablaze. He was able to escape from the haunted,
burning mansion when saved and led away to safety by the ghost of
his dead sister Juliet, but upon his return home, he was still being
stalked by Christina.

Heaven's Gate (1980)

Bridges
and Ella Watson Were Shot and Killed by Frank Canton

After a murderous two-day bloody showdown between the
armed immigrant farmers and the mercenaries hired by an association
of cattlemen to protect their stock, it appeared the violence was over.

However, there were still two more deaths -- the surprising
shock ambush murders of both John L. Bridges (Jeff Bridges) and bordello
madam Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert) in a striking white dress. Sheriff
Jim Averill's (Kris Kristofferson) lost love died in his arms. Both
were shot by killers led by black-garbed and evil Frank Canton (Sam
Waterston).

In the film's added, almost wordless, despairing coda
or epilogue scene, Averill - now appearing miserable and unemotional
about ten years later, was quietly lost and adrift in his recollections
- he was a rich yacht captain off Newport, Rhode Island in 1903 with
his wife (his waltz partner in the film's opening scene, and the woman
in the framed picture he kept with him)

Hide and Seek (2005)

Emily's
Imaginary Friend "Charlie" Was Her Own Father David's Split Personality;
He Had Murdered His Unfaithful Wife; Emily's Therapist Shot and
Killed David to End His Rampage; Emily Also Had a Split Personality

This creepy thriller by director John Polson, soundly criticized for its illogical and contrived conclusion and for its shifting points of view, opened with the suicidal death of loving mother Alison Callaway (Amy Irving) after playing a game of 'hide and seek' at bedtime with her daughter, when she slit her wrists while in a bathtub surrounded ceremonially by candles in her NYC apartment, at exactly 2:06 am. She seemed to be in a troubled marriage to mild-mannered husband-psychologist Dr. David Callaway (Robert De Niro), and said that things were "beyond therapy" before her death.

David decided to move with his traumatized and depressed
young 11 year-old daughter Emily (Dakota Fanning) to the small and
secluded resort town of Woodland in upstate NY. Soon after, Emily kept
talking about her tormented association with an imaginary, invisible
friend named "Charlie."

There were lots of red herrings about the identity of "Charlie" who
liked to play the game of Hide and Seek, who hated David, and was jealous
of Emily's company. Who was Charlie?

one of the next-door neighbors: husband and wife
Steven and Laura (Robert John Burke and Melissa Leo) who were still
grieving the loss of their own daughter

the strange real estate
agent Mr. Haskins (David Chandler) who delivered keys in the middle
of the night

the leering and nosy town Sheriff Hafferty (Dylan
Baker)

There were a few lurid reminders of the suicide - i.e.,
the cat was found drowned in a similar bathtub setting at 2:06 am for
which "Charlie" was responsible, with crayon writings on the wall.

The plot twist came toward the film's end - David was
the one who had suffered trauma and pain from his wife's death and
developed a split personality. He killed his wife after he had viewed
her in a compromising, unfaithful coupling on an upper stairwell at
a party (a recurring nightmare for David) and suffocated her while
she slept next to him, and then planted her in the bathtub to make
it look like a suicide.

There were a few obvious clues to David's menacing
schizoid personality:

(1) when Emily told her father about what "Charlie" had
said regarding his wife: "He said he would have satisfied her"
(2)
David's endless writings in a large journal while wearing headphones
- all fantasies in his head (the journal he was writing was ultimately
blank and he hadn't even unpacked his headphones, in his office filled
with lots of unpacked boxes)
(3) David's
killing of the butterfly in the cave that Emily had followed when they
first arrived at their house, leaving a smudge print on his palm

By the conclusion, David had
thoroughly victimized his daughter and killed young and attractive divorcee
Elizabeth Young (Elisabeth Shue) - the aunt/babysitter for a girl about
Emily's age named Amy (Molly Grant Kallins), by pushing her out a second-story
window and then placing her body in a bathtub with blood scrawled on
the curtain reading: "Can you see now?" and afterwards making
it look like she was involved in a car accident. [The words "Can
you see now" were Emily's continual question that revealed she knew
her father was crazy.]

David also killed the town's Sheriff and was about
to strangle family friend and Emily's therapist Katherine (Famke Janssen)
in a cave in the woods. When Emily begged him not to hurt her friend,
Katherine shot him twice with the Sheriff's gun and put an end to his
rampage.

The film was famous for having multiple epilogues - the
theatrical one ended with Emily's drawing of herself with two heads,
implying that she was also schizophrenic.

High Tension (2003, Fr.) (aka Haute Tension, or Switchblade Romance)

The
Killer Existed Only in Marie's Psychotic Mind, Due to Her Secret and
Obsessive Love for Alexia; In the Final Scene, Marie Was Institutionalized
and the Story Was Told In Flashback From Her Point of View

In Alexandre Aja's low-budget, breakout NC-17 rated,
homoerotic and gritty horror film (partially dubbed in English for
its North American release in 2005), two female law college student
friends, during a break, went to Alexia's farm home in the French countryside:

heterosexual farmgirl Alexia (or "Alex")
(Maiwenn Le Besco)

wild-spirited,
blonde, short-haired lesbian Marie (Cecile De France)

A brutish van driver (Philippe
Nahon) on their first night invaded the home, ferociously killed
Alexia's family members, and kidnapped a bound-up Alexia. After witnessing
the murders, Marie hid in the back of the nameless killer's blood-stained,
rusty van to pursue him and help rescue her friend.

This fact was hinted throughout the
early sequences of the film, including:

Marie's introductory
dream credits sequence (a dream when she was sleeping in the back
seat of the car, in which she described how she was a slasher who
chased herself through the forest ("It wasn't a guy. It was
me. That was the weirdest part. It was me running after me"))

a strange necrophilia-tinged shot of the killer in
the van having sex with a decapitated head in his lap that he discarded
out the window as he drove off

the intercut scene of the killer's
arrival while Marie masturbated to the song Runaway
Girl by
U-Roy with lyrics: "She's just another girl, that's what you are.
You are just another girl" after she had spied on love interest
Alexia through an upstairs window as she took a shower

Undoubtedly
Marie felt homicidal rage for being repeatedly sexually spurned. Another
clue to Marie's split personality was the shot of a doll's face split
in two by a large crack. An obscure clue was provided with the Latin
saying on the back of Marie's tight T-shirt which read: Audaces
Solum (literally "Boldly Alone" or "Very Lonely").

In the conclusion, the male killer with a chain saw
was transformed into Marie after he told Alexia: "You really know how to drive
a woman crazy, don't ya, ya goddamn bitch!...Do you love me?" As
the bloodied Marie kissed Alexia, she repeatedly told her: "Nobody
will come between us ever again, Alex. Never again. I won't let anyone
come between us anymore" - explaining her murderous actions to
kill her own family so that she could obsessively be with her.

In the
last scene, Marie was in a mental institution (the same images were
present in the film's opening when Marie stated: "Are they recording?" -
making the entire film her own nightmarish flashback). Alex looked
at Marie through a one-way mirror as Marie sensed her presence and
gestured with open arms toward her.

A History of Violence (2005)

Heroic
Diner Owner Tom Stall Was Actually Philadelphia Hitman "Joey Cusack";
Tom's son Jack Shot and Killed Mobster Fogarty Sent to Confront
Him; Tom Journeyed to Philadelphia To Settle Score with Older
Brother Richie, Killing Him and Other Thugs; Tom Was Somberly Greeted
By Family On His Return Home

Canadian director David Cronenberg's crime-thriller told about a happily-married couple (and family) in the small Indiana town of Millbrook: successful lawyer Edie Stall (Maria Bello) and her mild-mannered diner manager/husband Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen).

An attempted robbery in the diner at closing time was
foiled by a quick-acting, self-defensive Tom who used a dazzling, ferocious
and lethal array of fighting and shooting skills to destroy two "ruthless" drifter criminals, Leland and Billie (Stephen McHattie and Greg Bryk) - Tom even startled himself. [The two had bloodily massacred motel staff members in the opening scene.]

Stabbed in the right foot during the assault, Tom was
lauded as a "local
hero" and "man of few words" - but his past soon came
back to haunt him after increased media attention. Irish organized
crime mobster Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris) appeared in town in a black
sedan with thugs to settle the score, knowing Tom as "Joey Cusack" -
a brutal killer from Philadelphia who had left him scarred on his face
(from barbed wire) and blind in his left eye. Tom's/Joey's stalking
by Fogarty was not easily "over and done with."

When followed
into the mall, Edie argued with Fogarty: "My husband does not
know you. He wouldn't know you, somebody like you." The vengeful
mobster shot back: "He knows me intimately." Tom had claimed
early in the film to his young six-year old daughter Sarah (Heidi Hayes)
that "there's no such thing as monsters," although he was
now facing his own past 'monsters ' - he had been living a lie for
many years.

During Fogarty's attempted swap of kidnapped adolescent
son Jack (Ashton Holmes) for Tom at the farm-home, Tom dispatched with
Fogarty's two men but was shot in the shoulder - after which Jack killed
Fogarty with a shotgun to protect his father.

After painfully admitting
his violent killer past to Edie as another person named Joey and suffering
strained family relations with his distraught wife, Tom journeyed to
Philadelphia to visit his older brother Richie Cusack (William Hurt),
the head of a city crime syndicate, at his Escalade estate. During
a tense confrontation, Richie was envious that his brother was "living
the American dream" and claimed that disfigured Fogarty and others
had taken their anger out on him ("You cost me a lot of time and
money...I had to clean up your mess...You got no idea how much s--t
I had to pull to get back in with those guys...I'm still behind the
eight-ball because of you").

When Richie refused Joey's peace
gesture ("I'm here to make peace. Tell me what I gotta do to make
things right"), he told Joey point-blank: "You could die,
Joey." Richie had ordered his four hitmen to assassinate Joey
by garrotting, but he swiftly killed the thugs and then confronted
his brother one final time before fatally shooting him in the head
(Richie: "Jesus, Joey", Joey: "Jesus, Richie").

The film ended without further dialogue in a dining room
table scene of the Stall nuclear family as Tom returned home. The two
Stall kids understatedly welcomed their father: Sarah brought a place
setting for her dad and Jack moved the main dish platter closer to
his father. Edie, still feeling like she was living in a nightmare,
and Tom shared a painful glance at each other.

Hot Fuzz (2007, UK)

The Sleepy Town of Sandford, Britain's "Village of the Year," Was Controlled
by the Sinister Neighborhood Watch Alliance (NWA), Headed by Supermarket
Owner Simon Skinner and Police Inspector Frank Butterman, Who Had
Conspired (As Hooded Slashers) to Murder "Problem" Individuals Who
Were Planning to Change the Town - Develop It With a Large Shopping
Center and Bypass Road

An R-rated, contemporary action police comedy from co-writer/director
Edgar Wright, the over-the-top Hollywood-style cop film paired a London
officer with a young oafish constable in a sleepy English village.
The fish-out-of-water tale deliberately parodied many of the conventions
of cop films, such as Dirty Harry, Bullitt, Lethal
Weapon, Bad
Boys II, Point Break and others, and its tagline stressed
the point: "They're bad boys. They're die hards. They're lethal
weapons. They are..."

The main character in the inspired send-up was London
Metropolitan Police Service Constable Nicholas Angel (co-writer Simon
Pegg) - he was so efficient, exceptional and competent at his job as
a London cop, with a superlative 400% above-average arrest record,
that he was incurring jealous wrath from his co-workers. He was made
a Sergeant and reluctantly transferred to the bucolic English
countryside, to the laid-back rural Gloucestershire town of Sandford
("the
safest village in the country").
The ultimate decision had been ordered by Chief
Inspector Kenneth (Bill Nighy): "You've been making us all look
bad."
Angel was told that the town had been honored
with the title: "Village of the Year" - for its clean and
safe image.

In the sleepy town on his first night, the professional
policeman arrested a number of underaged boys
for drinking at the local pub. He also arrested a drunk driver - a
sluggish, dim-witted and chubby Danny Butterman (Nick
Frost). After he had taken the inebriated individuals to the station
for arrest, the next morning at police headquarters, he was surprised
to meet Constable Danny and his father - the
kindly, but scheming and widowed Inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent),
who urged him to overlook indiscretions in the town for "the greater
good."

Angel also met the other members of the inept police
force, and the civilian liaison of Sandford's
Neighbourhood Watch Alliance (NWA) - bearded Tom
Weaver (Edward Woodward), who exclaimed that the town's 'lawless' elements
(including a figure known as The Living Statue) needed to be squashed: "If
we don't come down hard on these clowns, we are gonna be up to our
balls in jugglers!" To his astonishment, Angel was paired
up with Danny, an obsessed aficionado of action-buddy-cop DVD videos.
Danny wanted to experience typical action seen in Lethal Weapon, Die
Hard, Bad Boys II, Supercop and Point
Break ("gun fights, car chases, proper action and
s--t...a no-holds barred, adrenaline-fueled thrill ride"),
although job-obsessed Angel just wanted to follow the letter of the
law.

Soon enough, Angel met a few of the town's leaders -
members of the NWA (all the members of the town had 'occupation-related'
names), including Simon Skinner (Timothy Dalton),
the slick and obnoxious local Somerfield supermarket manager. The town
was similar to the one in The Stepford Wives, with residents
constantly providing surveillance via walkie-talkies and closed-circuit
video cameras. The
uptight, pompous residents of the idyllic village were immediately
skeptical of the out-of-towner (they called the "top cop" - "Top
Cock") and ridiculed him. With
nothing much to do, Angel dealt with an escaped white swan, shoplifting,
speeders, illegal hedgerow clippings, unlicensed firearms, and he deactivated
a naval sea mine.

After a few weeks on the job, hard-nosed
cop Angel began to suspect a foul-play murder conspiracy after a series
of horrific fatal "accidents" committed by a black-hooded
and cloaked slasher. It began
with a car crash that beheaded its two occupants. Angel believed that
the sinister NWA (and its hooded individuals) was eliminating those it
considered a "problem"
- those residents who might change the town with plans to develop a large
shopping center ("a retail park"), and a proposed Sandford Bypass road.
For "the greater good," the conspiracy was fueled by the desire to
keep the honor of the town's "Best Village" award. Inspector Butterman
had appointed himself as "judge, jury, and executioner."

In particular, Angel
suspected Skinner as the lead assassin, and then he was attacked in
his hotel room by Michael "Lurch"
Armstrong (Rory McCann), the trolley boy at Skinner's supermarket -
sent by Skinner as the hooded killer to murder him. Angel
confronted the entire hooded group of town leaders seated in a circle
at the town's castle, and as he was pursued by them, he discovered multiple
corpses - evidence of the murders of problematic townsfolk. Then, he
fled the town to save his life.

Determined to launch an all-out assault
upon the town's leaders, Angel returned to face a
serious gun-battle skirmish with its armed citizens (with Danny's support)
in the streets, and then inside the supermarket, after which:

Skinner and Inspector Butterman fled to the model
village, where Skinner slipped and his mouth was impaled (through
his chin) on the sharp spire of a miniature cathedral

the fleeing Inspector Butterman crashed his
car into a tree when attacked by the hissing swan in the back-seat

Danny heroically took a bullet in the abdomen when
he saved Angel from Mr. Weaver's blunderbuss gunshot

Weaver fell on the confiscated
naval mine - which exploded, destroying much of the Sandford police
station

The film ended simply, one year later, with the two having
decided to remain, to continue policing the town of crimes (Angel:
"I kinda like it here"). Danny had been promoted to Sergeant and Angel
was the Chief Inspector of the Sandford Police Service.

Stapleton
Was Unmasked by Sherlock Holmes As the Killer; The Legendary Hound Was
Stapleton's Large, Half-Starved Vicious Dog; Stapleton Fled and
Was Presumed to Die in the Moors

This was the first of 14 films with the duo of Sherlock
Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) as a detective
pairing. In this classic film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's
novel of the same name with the world famous detective Sherlock Holmes,
set in 1902, the culprit was local naturalist John Stapleton (Morton
Lowry), who was a distant relative (long lost cousin) of the Baskervilles.
He would have gained control of Baskerville Hall and its fortune
at Dartmoor if the last apparent Baskerville inheritor Sir Henry
Baskerville (Richard Greene) - the successor to the family title
- was to die.

Stapleton attempted to kill Sir Henry
by unleashing a half-starved, fearsome mastiff dog (a Great Dane) on
him in the desolate moors (the Great Grimpen Mire) - using the legend
of the giant phantasmagoric and demonic hound as a cover for the
murder. But he was unmasked as the criminal by Holmes in a dramatic
gathering of all the principals in the film, and presumably drowned
in the moors (Grimpen Mire) in his flight to escape.

House of Games (1987)

Psychiatrist
Margaret Was Conned -- Until She Killed Con-Man Mike and Resumed the
Conning Herself

David Mamet's twisting, elaborate
plotline was about successful best-selling author and psychiatrist
Dr. Margaret Ford (Lindsay Crouse) who became embroiled in the confidence
game racket with the assistance of self-admitted con-man 'guide'
Mike (Joe Mantegna) in a bar/pool hall called House of Games.

It was soon revealed that she was
the ultimate target in a complex, multi-layered con game, involving
$80,000.

In the unnerving, unexpected twist ending of this hoax
film, the used and betrayed Margaret resorted to viciously murdering
Mike in cold-blood with multiple gunshots in a deserted airport baggage
terminal.

As he edged his way to an exit
door after taking one bullet, she ordered that he beg for his life: "I
want you to beg me." He claimed she was only bluffing ("You're
all bluff. What - are you gonna kill me and then go to jail? Give
up all that good s--t that you have? Your best seller? That doctor
stuff? All that stuff you're trying so hard to protect? You're gonna
give that up?"). Her response was: "It's not my pistol.
I was never here," before firing a second time. She
was deadly serious: "Beg for your life, or
I'm going to kill you," as he slid wounded to the floor. She
added:
"I can't help it. I'm out of control....Beg me for your life." He
ranted and raved at her with foul language, as she slowly approached
with her gun drawn:

Hey, F--K you! This is what you always wanted, you
crooked BITCH! You THIEF! You always need to get caught, cuz you
KNOW you're bad. I never hurt anybody. I never shot anybody. You
sought this out. This is what you always wanted. I knew it the
FIRST time you came in. You're WORTHLESS, you know it? You're a
WHORE! You came back like a DOG to its own VOMIT! You sick BITCH!
I'm not gonna GIVE you S--T!

She remorselessly peppered him with another gunshot
(her third) when he refused. He finally requested:

Thank you, sir. May I have another?

Three more gunshots echoed as she killed him in cold-blood.
In the end, she became the new con-artist.

In the final scene, she was in a restaurant with
a friend -- she autographed a book and stole a gold cigarette lighter. Her
grimly smug smile of self-satisfaction afterwards as she lit her cigarette
with it revealed that she had fallen into the addictive lure of being
a con artist herself.

House of Wax (1953)

Professor
Jarrod Survived the Wax Museum Fire - He Used Murdered Corpses to Make
Wax Figures, Until He Was Unmasked by Sue Allen, and Died In a
Bubbling Vat of Wax

In this classic horror film that was originally shown
in 3-D (it was the first 3D film from a major studio (Warner Brothers)),
Vincent Price starred in the lead role as deranged wax figure sculptor-curator
Professor Henry Jarrod, who was presumed dead after his early 20th
century NY wax museum was burned down.

However, he survived and opened a new
museum that showcased famous crimes and murders through wax figures.

The plot twist was that the vengeful Jarrod (wearing
a mask to hide his melted face) - with scarred and useless hands
- had been murdering people and then coating them with molten wax
to produce very life-like statues from their corpses for his waxworks
exhibits.

In the surprise ending, and in one of the film's most
startling scenes, Jarrod was unmasked by heroine Sue Allen (Phyllis
Kirk), and he wound up falling into a burning cauldron of tallow
- his apt and richly-deserved fate.

House on Haunted Hill (1958)

Loren's Fourth Wife Annabelle Was Scheming with Guest Dr. Trent to Kill
Her Husband Frederick Loren for His Fortune; He Turned the Tables
on The Couple, and Both Ended Up in a Vat of Acid

The original horror film with this title was director/producer
William Castle's campy and gimmicky House on Haunted Hill (1958)
- forty years earlier than its glossy and elaborate remake. Filled
with B-movie shocks and plot twists, the setup was the hosting of
a mysterious party by eccentric millionaire
Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) for 5 guests and for his fourth wife
Annabelle Loren (Carol Ohmart).

He had rented the
house from drunken wastrel Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook Jr.), one
of the guests and the mansion's owner, who believed that there had
been seven inexplicable, brutal murders in the reputedly-haunted
house - including beheadings and amputations. In fact, the house
did seem spooked, with a falling chandelier, bleeding ceilings, moving
walls and secret passageways, a severed head in a suitcase, and 'ghosts.'

Any of them who survived the 12-hour night
in the locked house (after midnight) would receive $10,000.

The suicide (by hanging) of Annabelle in the stairwell
was faked. She was actually allied with Trent
- the two lovers were both scheming to kill Loren for his fortune. The
vengeful Loren had other plans - he faked that he was shot
dead in the cellar by one of the guests who was driven to hysteria,
young Nora Manning. Trent went to the wine cellar to dump
Frederick's body into an acid vat hidden beneath a large trap-door
in the floor. During a 'lights-out' struggle between the two, it sounded
like Loren's body was dumped into the vat. [However, it was later
revealed that Frederick revived - the gun that shot him had blanks
in it - and
pushed Trent's body into the vat of acid.]

Shortly later, Annabelle arrived to search for Trent. From
a side room, Loren scared the wits out of Annabelle with an "Emergo" skeleton
(she believed it was her vengeful husband Loren's skeleton) that
rose and emerged dancing from the vat. The conniving wife was pursued
and taunted by the skeleton, using Loren's voice: "At last,
you've got it all. Everything I have, even my life. But you're not
going to live to enjoy it. Come with me, murderess. Come with me."
She screamed as the skeleton touched her shoulder, backed up in fright,
and tumbled into the vat behind her. Loren emerged from the shadows,
manipulating the puppet-like skeleton on wires and strings.

He offered silky-voiced
eulogies for the two deceased:

"Goodnight, doctor. Goodnight, Annabelle. The
crime you two planned was indeed perfect. Only the victim is alive
and the murderers are not. It's a pity you didn't know when you
started your game of murder that I was playing too."

Loren admitted to his guests that the two had died
trying to kill him: "I'm ready for justice to decide whether
I'm innocent or guilty."

This semi-documentary style,
propagandistic 'film noir' told about a group of German Nazi spies
in New York City attempting to transmit plans for 'Process 97' (America's
secret development of the A-bomb) to Hamburg while being infiltrated
by the FBI (through recruited American engineering student and double-agent
Bill Dietrich (William Eythe)).

It was revealed in the film's
conclusion that the mysterious character of masterspy leader "Mr.
Christopher" was
actually female transvestite spy member Elsa Gebhardt (Signe Hasso).

She was accidentally shot to death by one of her own
men after she had changed into the clothes of a gentleman, in an
attempt to escape, and was trapped in their surrounded headquarters
on 92nd Street by government agents.